Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: enthralled

How Your Vocabulary Can Feed the Hungry

This is so cool. Um ... don't click through to the game unless you have some time to kill...

How Your Vocabulary Can Feed The Hungry:
What if just knowing what a word meant could help feed hungry people around the world? Well, at website called FreeRice it does. Go to the site, and you'll see a word and four definitions. Choose the right meaning and the site's advertisers will donate 10 grains of rice to the World Food Program, a United Nations agency that is the world's largest humanitarian organization. Keep on guessing (the quiz gets progressively more arduous, not to mention vexatious), and for each correct answer 10 more grains of rice will head to people who need it. Now, admittedly, 10 grains is a piddling amount. But the totals have grown exponentially. Over 56 billion grains of rice have been donated to date through this innovative program.


A thousand grains of rice later -- with only a few misses -- I finally managed to pry myself away from the site. The words are fascinating. Some are easy, some are really obscure. There must've been a good dozen I'd never seen before, so somebody dug deep for these. Hint: look for parts of words that you recognize as similar to other words.
Tags: activism, food, good news, vocabulary
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  • 7 comments
jenny_evergreen

jenny_evergreen

January 10 2009, 13:47:23 UTC 12 years ago

I've known about FreeRice for some time. Right now, I don't have time for it, but when I did, I found setting a daily goal worked well. I looked up how much rice makes a cup, but I've forgotten...somewhere between one and two thousand, I think. My daily goal was more modest than that, though. :)
talix18

talix18

January 10 2009, 15:26:59 UTC 12 years ago

Oh wow - if I'd known you didn't know about Free Rice I'd've sent you the link long ago! What level did you get to? My best is 51 and I average from the low to mid 40s, but I'd expect you to top that by a fair margin.
kitsana_d

kitsana_d

January 10 2009, 17:55:13 UTC 12 years ago

I love the free rice game. It keeps me entertained for hours!
minor_architect

minor_architect

January 10 2009, 19:29:32 UTC 12 years ago

Great theme for a philanthropy website! I kept going until I'd donated 1000 grains of rice, too. I think I only missed three or four words. (Although I admit I made a lot of good guesses. ;)

rice

Anonymous

January 10 2009, 21:51:01 UTC 12 years ago

Thanks Ysabet, I donated 1000 as well
Avalon
rippatton

rippatton

January 12 2009, 00:01:20 UTC 12 years ago

My kids love freerice. And what a vocabulary they will end up with! Makes me smile and all for a great cause.
jazzerat

jazzerat

January 13 2009, 05:42:28 UTC 12 years ago

Oh cool! I had this site bookmarked some years ago and used to play often. I've created a new hot button atop my browser so I can resume frequent play again. Thanks! :)